Despite my intention to review this item about a week or so ago when it was meant to arrive, but unfortunatly the manufacturer held up my shipment causing it to only arrive today. This however has done nothing to quell my joy in actually owning said item. The Item in question, is a Tasin Mini Ice Ball Mold (obtained via CScout Japan.) As much as I would of loved one of the larger sizes, the extra $1000 odd dollars it would have cost sorta made the proposition less desirable, so I settled for purchasing the mini 30mm mold (which required enough dubious justification as I could trick myself into that were better than “Its cool.”) But I digress and back to talking about said item. For those who have not seen or heard of these Tasin Ice Ball Molds before, they would be best described as a luxury item to make spherical ice spheres without chipping, shaving and seamless. Or to make ice soccer balls, baseballs or diamonds. (See more info here.)
The mold arrived this morning on the same day the package tracking said it would, much to my delight as my general feelings towards the accuracy of most package tracking can be summed up as scathing. Within the wrapping of the EMS bag a nicely bubble wrapped box with some japanese writing on it that I cannot read even if I tried. But it probally says someting about it being a Taisin Ice Ball Mold if I had to take an educated guess. Within the box however, one of my problems was solved. Since the resulting spheres are 30mm in diameter, an ice cube with all dimensions being greater than 30mm is required. This is an icecube size I do not own, as most of my ice cubes are either tiny, or long, or just a fraction to small, but with the mould, 2 large Ice Trays were supplied. With no mention of this item of information on the product page, joy was evident as it means I shall be able to test the mold tomorrow night after some ice has been frozen tonight. Within a smaller box the gold anodized aluminium slug sat within a protective bag of bubblewrap. This slug was made up of two smaller slugs sitting on top of each other with a hemisphere cut out of each side and guide rods to keep it all aligned.
Unfortunatly at this point I had to put the mold back into its box as the lack of Ice at work stopped any further testing. Until tonight that is.
ICE. Suprisingly reasonable quantity of it in the freezer, more than I expected and plenty enough to test the mold out tonight with some ice cubes that may be a bit on the small side, so I would end up with ice spheres with a flat side. But none the less, the mold was heated up, Ice was placed on the bottom half, the top half was applied and presto, ice melts, mold closes, mold is opened and sphere of ice is removed. At this point I realise I’m going to need somewhere to put the ice, so a tall glass is got, and the ice ball is dropped in it. Looking at the pile of ice cubes that I have left the path comes clear. About 10 minutes later I’m out of ice cubes and have a glass overflowing with balls. With a bit of a largish puddle of water covering the benchtop.
There we have it, from my own personal opinion, I feel that the cost of it was a bit on the expensive side for what it does. But for what it does to ice it was well worth getting it. More so than some other things I have purchased in the past which have had little more than decorative value. This at least has a practical purpose, to make spheres of ice to put into beverages, and I like refreshing beverages. Whether this fact would be enough to cause you to get one of your own is arguable, but it is rather fun as the lack of ice I now have shows.
Pictures coming soon.
August 4th, 2008 | Cool Things